Daily Card Redesign #110: Greater Werewolf

Daily Card Redesign is a daily Magic: The Gathering design exercise where I randomly choose a card for the scenario of it being killed late during its own set's development. I design a replacement card that uses the same art, is the same color, is the same rarity, and has a name that, alphabetically, keeps it within the same collector number for the set.

Redesign:

Every other turn of yours, the moon is full! I put "Harried" as a name as both a joke reference to its hairy state and of the fact that this guy is changing against its will - being bothered by its lunar curse.

Daily Card Redesign #109: Nantuko Calmer

Daily Card Redesign is a daily Magic: The Gathering design exercise where I randomly choose a card for the scenario of it being killed late during its own set's development. I design a replacement card that uses the same art, is the same color, is the same rarity, and has a name that, alphabetically, keeps it within the same collector number for the set.

Redesign:

It looks like this Nantuko could be leading the way with some kind of guiding light magic. And that other Nantuko is being led (the Nantuko Guide doesn't get to guiding others until later with its experience, as shown with threshold).

And, of course, guides through the forest have forestwalk.

Daily Card Redesign #108: Evacuation

Daily Card Redesign is a daily Magic: The Gathering design exercise where I randomly choose a card for the scenario of it being killed late during its own set's development. I design a replacement card that uses the same art, is the same color, is the same rarity, and has a name that, alphabetically, keeps it within the same collector number for the set.

Redesign:

Another way of evacuating a place is to do the flicker effect on everybody. I decided to do a riff on Sudden Disappearance by making it affect everyone instead of just one player and an instant.

Because I made it an instant, players can still cast this during the end step of the opponent's turn. What happens then is that the permanents would still be absent during the next player's turn and wouldn't return until the end of THAT player's turn. I'm afraid of shenanigans because of this, and because I wanted to keep the "beginning of the next end step" duration, I just added an additional condition for returning the permanents - at the upkeep step.

You Make the Card: Soul Swap

For those who don't already know, the fourth You Make the Card has been and is currently underway, and so far, the Magic: The Gathering community has decided to create a black enchantment. The deadline is now past for submitting rules text, and Wizards is currently going to whittle down the submissions to the best usable ones for all of us to eventually vote on.

For now, we wait, and while we wait, I'm sharing with you my submission for You Make the Card. First, I want to say I'm aware of the high chance of it being rejected due to rules issues or complexity. Here it is:

Here's a breakdown of the card:

• "You and the chosen player each control the other.": Both Mindslaver and Sorin Markov exist and let you be able to control a player for one turn. This enchantment lets you control a player permanently at the cost of giving up control of your own body. This card is within black's color pie due to the philosophy of "power at any cost."
• "take an extra turn after this one": This text exists because, when you switch control with the other player, that player effectively loses his or her next turn. In a two-player game, that can lead to some lame gameplay. At least this extra turn can give the other player the "fair" amount of turns to un-lame-ify the dilemma they're in.
• "if exactly one of you or the chosen player": This condition of "exactly one" is here because I want to prevent a potential infinite loop of losing by having each player lose at the same time except have it replaced by making the other player lose instead which then triggers the swap of losses again, and etc. But, to be clear, I'm not sure whether an infinite loop could happen if I didn't have this text here. Better safe than sorry!
• "exchange life totals": This effect is here because of this scenario - Arthur (controlled by Brad) is at 0 life, and Brad (controlled by Arthur) is at 7 life. The game's state-based effects would then try to cause Arthur (controlled by Brad) to lose the game. Instead, Soul Swap would cause Brad (controlled by Arthur) to lose the game. Then you're left with just Arthur (now back under Arthur's control). Except Arthur is still at 0 life. The game's state-based effects would then try again to cause Arthur to lose the game. This time, because Brad doesn't exist anymore, Arthur would just lose. This is not a desirable outcome. Thus, I put in "exchange life totals" so that Arthur would be able to keep on living with that 7 life Brad (who Arthur used to be in control of) had.
• "exile Soul Swap": This is here because otherwise it would be awkward if Arthur in the previous example had cast this spell, then defeated his own body (controlled by Brad), and then regained control of his own body with 7 life and STILL had Soul Swap, even with Brad being out of the game. It would sit there and do nothing. Best to get rid of it, especially so that we'd like to make it not too easy to just return this enchantment back to your hand with a blue spell just so you can recast it again.
• 298 Characters: The submission form for submitting the rules text had a limitation of 300 characters. Because of this, I had to perform some character-saving tricks. Because we needed to provide a Playtest Name, I wanted to use the card's Playtest Name within the rules text instead of the usual "CARDNAME" placeholder that is there until the card's name is finalized. And due that decision, "Soul Swap" was a short enough name to keep the character count down. Note that "Soul Switch" wouldn't have worked! "Sacrifice Soul Swap" would have put the rules text at too many characters, so I went with "exile Soul Swap." Lastly, due to the 298 characters being reached, there was nothing else I could do for this card besides what you see above.

I realize I may have sabotaged my attempts at winning You Make the Card with a design that isn't "safe," but I decided I wanted to "go big." If my design doesn't get picked as one of the final submissions up for voting, then so be it. But if it does... man, it's going to be one heck of a card!

Many thanks to Jules Robins and Evan Jones for giving me critique and/or suggestions for my card design before I submitted. The general advice was on the card's downfalls of being confusing/complex. But you could say I'm being stubborn.

Daily Card Redesign #107: Jareth, Leonine Titan

Daily Card Redesign is a daily Magic: The Gathering design exercise where I randomly choose a card for the scenario of it being killed late during its own set's development. I design a replacement card that uses the same art, is the same color, is the same rarity, and has a name that, alphabetically, keeps it within the same collector number for the set.

Redesign:

I decided to go with the "protection" theme because he has this shield, and it could be part of his prowess - he's really good at protecting. But he's also a Pit Fighter. So, I made it so that he's a no-nonsense combat phase person. Which is why he rejects spells and abilities. 

But I only want him to be able to protect for as long as he has shield up. If he lands some punches to the enemy, he lowers his shield to do so. But I didn't want him to get killed after he's declared as an attacker but before he gets to deal damage to the opponent. With his two abilities working in tandem, he ensures that an opponent can only kill Jareth after Jareth has a chance to hurt them.

Daily Card Redesign #106: Firebreathing

Daily Card Redesign is a daily Magic: The Gathering design exercise where I randomly choose a card for the scenario of it being killed late during its own set's development. I design a replacement card that uses the same art, is the same color, is the same rarity, and has a name that, alphabetically, keeps it within the same collector number for the set.

Redesign:

Like Soul's Fire, only cheaper and with more restrictions. Because it's hard to compete with Lightning Bolt in Alpha, I had to do direct damage that is either variable (like Fireball, Disintegrate, and Earthquake were doing in the same set) or have an added benefit (like making it into a cantrip).

Daily Card Redesign #105: Sorin's Vengeance

Daily Card Redesign is a daily Magic: The Gathering design exercise where I randomly choose a card for the scenario of it being killed late during its own set's development. I design a replacement card that uses the same art, is the same color, is the same rarity, and has a name that, alphabetically, keeps it within the same collector number for the set.

Redesign:

I like how the first design interacted with Sorin's second ability. So, I decided for my redesign I would have it interact with Sorin's ultimate ability.

In order for this new spell to be able to interact with controlling a player's next turn, I needed to have an effect that repeated as long as the opponent decided to keep repeating it. Like Trade Secrets. Usually, it's against the opponent's wishes to do so, but you control them, so then you just bleed them out.

I also needed to have it be an instant, so that it could be played during the turn you're controlling.

I decided that Sorin's twisting that blade deeper and deeper into this guy until this guy cries mercy. This is why the effect does a repetition of the process that could be stopped by the opponent. Flavorful!

It's hard balancing this! But just the numbers would need tweaking. Five cards, ten cards, etc. And then 1 damage or 2 damage. Etc. So if you see that it's over or under-powered - pretend those two numbers were adjusted appropriately.

Daily Card Redesign #104: Air Elemental

Daily Card Redesign is a daily Magic: The Gathering design exercise where I randomly choose a card for the scenario of it being killed late during its own set's development. I design a replacement card that uses the same art, is the same color, is the same rarity, and has a name that, alphabetically, keeps it within the same collector number for the set.

Redesign:

I decided that Alpha should really still have an Air Elemental to go along with its Water Elemental, even if I could try to come up with some kind of other interpretation of what creature this is from the art provided.

It'd be odd to see an Air Elemental not fly. So, I kept flying. I had no choice but to add an ability. What ability? Why, the ability to "blow away" something with a powerful whirlwind or gust of wind! What kinds of things can you blow away? Well, you can't blow away lands. Enchantments aren't physical objects. And planeswalkers didn't exist, yet. That left creatures and artifacts.

And that gives you the ability you see here! I thought it best to keep this an "enters the battlefield" ability to keep down the complexity (and its uncommon rarity). Especially considering Alpha!

You know, there isn't a card that returns specifically an artifact or creature as a result of a gust of wind. There's Disperse, which is strictly better. But you can't cost this new effect down to one blue mana, because then that would make Unsummon strictly worse. But, wait - sorcery speed! And voila:

I am happy this shares a name with a Pokemon TCG card, especially one I have vivid memories of.

Daily Card Redesign #103: Narcomoeba

Daily Card Redesign is a daily Magic: The Gathering design exercise where I randomly choose a card for the scenario of it being killed late during its own set's development. I design a replacement card that uses the same art, is the same color, is the same rarity, and has a name that, alphabetically, keeps it within the same collector number for the set.

Redesign:

I had a lot of fun with this one. I love doing weird conditions and triggers. I pondered different things like the condition "Whenever you take an extra turn" and etc.

So, this card is supposed to be replacing whatever you're searching for in your library to be this card instead. Let's say you Rampant Growth. Instead, you search for a 1/1 flyer and put it onto the battlefield tapped. I tried to make sure that this wouldn't be too powerful at ANY turn that you search for this guy. So, if you crack a fetchland on turn 1 and grab Nebbyfish instead, no big deal. Zephyr Sprite and Suntail Hawk exist, after all.

So, why would you want to play this? Well, that's for Johnny to figure out. =)

Since the jellyfish looks like it is floating/flying, I let it keep flying.

And, lastly - "nebby" means "nosy, impertinent." So, this thing just meddles in your searching activity and gets in the way (if you let it, of course). Nebbyfish! So cute.